Welcome to the André Simon Book Awards - the prestigious annual awards for food and drink books.

On behalf of the trustees of the award I would like to welcome you and say that we are looking forward to receiving your entries for 2016. Submissions can now be forwarded and the criteria, rules and application form can be found under 2016 awards. All the information on where to send the books can be found under entry details. The closing date is 18 November 2016 and the shortlist will be announced in early December.

This year we are delighted to welcome Bee Wilson as the assessor for the food books. Bee is a food writer and historian. She is the author of five books on food-related subjects including First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, which won the Special Commendation award at the André Simon Food and Drink Book awards 2015. She has written on food and other subjects for a wide range of publications including The Guardian, The London Review of Books and the New York Times magazine. She is the chair of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Fiona Beckett will be judging the drink books this year. An award-winning food and wine writer, Fiona has written for most of the national press in her time. She is currently the wine columnist for the Guardian and a contributing editor to Decanter magazine as well as publishing her own highly successful website matchingfoodandwine.com. She has written 23 food and wine books, most recently Fiona Beckett's Cheese Course.

Publishers are invited to submit books as they are published which enables the trustees and assessors to have more time to read and consider the books. Do try to get your entries in as soon as possible.

If you have any queries please contact Katie Lander, the Fund's organiser, at katie@andresimon.co.uk who will be able to help you.

We look forward to receiving the books for the 2016 awards.

NICK LANDERACTING CHAIRMAN

"Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized."

André Simon

PAST AWARD WINNERS

2015 AwardsFood:Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome
by Rachel Roddy

"Interesting new voices are emerging in food publishing, with books that show flair, passion and refreshingly authentic approaches to the world of food."

Pat Llewellyn - Food Assessor 2015

"I'm so pleased. It's such an honour to receive this prestigious award but extra special following in the footsteps of Elizabeth David, Marcella Hazan, Jane Grigson, Claudia Roden and so many other incredible cookery writers."

Jamie Oliver - John Avery Award 2015

"This was such an exciting process to be part of and I really enjoyed reading the wide variety of book entries. Such was the calibre that whittling them down was daunting at times."